Tapetum Lucidum
by Pencilwalla
Summary: Heartland City's underground dueling scene is full of drugs and intrigue. Ryoga just wants to collect enough Barianite to save his sister before her condition can kill her. Kaito just wants to finish arming the Sphere Field Cannon so his brother can be freed. And Yuuma wants to end the fighting over the Numbers, quickly, because the collateral damage is piling up fast.
1. Dark Soul Over

[warning for prostitution — no explicit sex scenes, but it is in there.]

Kaito didn't want to move, after it was over.

Shark was still underneath him, bent over the table, with Kaito's arms folded across the back of his shoulders. It had to be an uncomfortable position, but Shark didn't say anything until Kaito eased out of him, and off of him, and produced a handkerchief (it was Chri — it was V's, or had been, and Kaito folded it so that the monogram was hidden before he pressed it into Shark's hands) for him to clean up with. There were bruises on Shark's bare skin that stuck out vividly, revealed by the low cut of his shirt and the wide sleeves of his jacket, visible even after he began to dress. After he was done with the handkerchief, he tossed it to the floor; Kaito took great satisfaction in imagining V finding it later.

But he wasn't supposed to thinking about V. That was the whole point of this — Kaito searched for a word that would delay the inevitable self-loathing — transaction.

Shark finished getting dressed, the snap of his belt buckle echoing loudly in the warehouse. Kaito was already decent, but then again, he hadn't done much more than unzip. He hadn't really wanted to be naked in front of Shark.

He supposed Shark was used to it. (He supposed that for Shark there wasn't really a choice.)

"Well?"

Shark leaned against the edge of the table. "You dueled three duelists last week."

"That isn't a question."

"Who's their supplier?

So that was what Shark was after. He looked too good to be an addict, though. his eyes weren't bloodshot, his voice and hands were steady, and he wasn't manic the way duelists coming down from a high often were, frantic and unfocused in their desperation to get more.

He considered the question. He knew that Heartland was the one in charge of distributing the Barianite, with Droite and Gauche underneath him. And they had several underground dueling rings they frequented, where they gave out Barianite to the winners and let it trickle across the city. Presumably they had ways of guarding it so that it wasn't stolen from them. Even if he told Ryoga where they were, Ryoga would just have to duel for it, and the worst thing that could happen to him was that he'd end up possessed by a Numbers.

It would be unpleasant for him, but it would help Kaito. He had a quota to meet, and if he failed, neither Tron nor Faker nor the Barians would show him any leniency. Kaito could not fail.

But Kaito was the best. That was why he was willing to endure the increasingly difficult circumstances, and the nightmares, and the pain, and the fact that he had become the kind of man who traded information for sex. He was not just a Hunter, but the Hunter, and that meant he could capture more Numbers and obtain more Barianite than anyone else.

He was willing to have a stained soul if it would keep Haruto alive.

"They were working out of a dueling ring on 4th and 27th. It's called the Bright Heart."

He felt bad for Shark (what a stupid nickname). He was walking into a dangerous place; the Bright Heart was invitation only.

Shark nodded to himself, one hand twitching towards the fang around his neck. A tell, Kaito thought, as Shark's hand dropped again.

"We're done here," he said, and he started to walk away, hands in his pockets.

"How did you find me?"

Kaito wasn't a street duelist, not in the tradiitonal sense. And his soulless victims could hardly tell tales.

Shark stopped. He smirked at Kaito over his shoulder, but he didn't answer.

Then he started walking again. He was very steady for someone who'd just been fucked over a table. Kaito envied him his calm as he reached for his D-gazer; it seemed it was time for Orbital 7 to stop fooling around. They had work to do.

_Don't think about it. Just remember what you're here for._

The Bright Heart went dark as the audience — the bookies with their pages of bets, the recruiters in their sharp suits, the duelists in their flashy colors, the spectators all varying degrees of drunk — was seated. The ring that took up most of the room was the only thing lit; a steel cage was lowered over top of it, to keep the duelists inside. There would be no forfeit accepted, no surrender allowed this night.

It was win or lose.

Ryoga was in a seat at the bar, away from the audience, his full glass still sitting on the wooden surface. There was a bitter, sour taste in his mouth, from the bile he'd swallowed, and the favors he had performed to get in here, but he didn't dare take even a sip. He needed all his wits tonight. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to calm the nausea in his stomach; but his belly roiled, his teeth clenched, his hands would have trembled if he weren't sitting on them. The announcer was beginning to speak, his voice painting a picture for his listeners: two duelists, of equal and great talent, risking everything for a mysterious prize. He made it sound almost noble.

Ryoga wondered if anyone bought it. He knew that the duelists were just thugs, looking for a fix that they couldn't get anywhere else; he knew that the prize was really a taste of the highest quality Barianite, and a chance to feel a rush of power for a few brief hours before the drug wore off and reality, cold, pathetic reality, came crashing in. He had seen the duelists outside the club on his way in. Their eyes were hungry. They were too addicted to duel without the Barianite, but they were too addicted to stop dueling for it, and the paradox left them with nothing.

He understood the hunger too well. After all, he was here for the Barianite, too.

It looked nothing like the stadium from Nationals, he told himself, but the sight of the scoreboard and the duelists prepping their disks still made him ill. He took a deep breath, swallowing down the memories.

_"It's Shark's turn, but he hasn't played yet! What is happening?"_

_Fire and smoke. Strands of singed blue hair over bright red skin. They were saying that he had saved her, but Ryoga knew better; he knew that his opponent wasn't just an asshole, but a murderer._

_And yet he had no drive to defeat him. He knew the truth: it was not IV's fault that Rio was comatose. It was his._

_It should have been me, Ryoga thought, and he put his hand over his deck in surrender, in penance —_

The crowd roared as the duelists drew their hands, jerking Ryoga out of his own mind. He shivered.

_You knew this was coming,_ he reminded himself. _Don't fall apart. Or you'll end up like those guys outside._

One of the duelists was using a card he recognized. It sucked Ryoga back into the past — it had been Rio's card, back when she dueled and walked and spoke and breathed without the aid of machines — and she had been very good. She'd been strong and brave and intensely focused.

If she could see him now, gagging and sweating, completely unseated by the sight of a dueling ring, she would — Ryoga covered his mouth with his hand, feeling the pressure all over again, the doctor's voice in his ear saying _her organs are failing,_ the crowd screaming _Shark! Shark!_

He couldn't do it. He couldn't even move. He was a failure, he was disgusting, he couldn't stand being in the room; Ryoga almost bolted, held in place only by the last of his resolve.

_I can't think like this. It doesn't matter what happens to me, as long as Rio…_

He kept his eyes just above the ring. He had hardly moved, he realized dimly, for all the turmoil inside him, and with the noise of the duel ongoing and the fact that he was sitting away from both the entrance and the audience, no one was even looking in his direction. If he could just hold it together for a little longer.

One of the duelists taunted the other — standard trash talk, but Ryoga heard it in another voice, a mocking voice that he heard in his dreams through walls of fire and clouds of smoke — and that was too much. There was a bathroom only a few yards away; he stood up, forcing his legs to move without shaking, and walked, not ran, into it.

The moment the door closed behind him, Ryoga collapsed.

He took deep breaths, or tried to; the air wouldn't move into his lungs, his heart beat fast, and it was too hot in the bathroom, and none of his limbs would move correctly, and all Ryoga could hear and see was the hospital, Rio's body covered in bandages, the heart monitor beating steady and slow, the doctors whispering about survival rates and surgeries and life support —

It took him a long time to regain control. By then, he was leaning back against one of the sinks; he noticed then that the bathroom was filthy, and it smelled, and after tracking down Kaito and then having to convince Rikuo and Kaio to bring him along, it hurt to sit on the hard tile floor. Ryoga shielded his nose with the sleeve of his jacket and thought.

_I can't waste any more time._

Ryoga looked up. There was a vent on the wall across from him. It was small, but so was he; he could probably fit, if he were willing to be uncomfortable.

The vent couldn't be worse than the bathroom, and there was no way he was going to be able to steal anything otherwise, not without being noticed. Ryoga had to use the sink for support to haul himself upright, but he did.

Thirty minutes and a painful, cramped crawl through a dusty ventilation shaft later, Ryoga found another vent that led into a room.

An occupied room, Ryoga saw, and he scooted backwards as quietly as possible in case one of them looked at the vent. There were two of them; a woman and a man, the woman with a stern face, the man's expression suggesting he was about to get into trouble. They were brightly dressed, like duelists, and they were carrying disks and deck cases, but what were they doing back here, then?

"…a dangerous plan."

"Oh, come on, Droite! Don't be a stick in the mud. Heartland said it was alright."

"Gauche, the case —"

"The case will be fine! When was the last time you dueled?"

The woman frowned, but her fingers twitched towards her belt. Ryoga watched as she stepped forward; he could see that she was carrying a briefcase in her right hand. It was ordinary: bron leather, shiny, no visible locks. Ryoga felt a jolt when he saw it, and he knew.

Impossible — there was no way — and yet Ryoga had heard the rumors that beloved city icon Mr. Heartland was somehow a criminal, and these two were duelists who apparently didn't duel much, and there was nothing else of value here in the underground dueling rings. It was too good to be true.

"Alright." Droite set the case on the table gingerly. "Let's go."

The two left, the door clicking shut behind them, and once Ryoga could no longer hear their footsteps, he moved the vent cover and slid down onto the floor. He brushed the dust off his body as he walked, slowly, towards the case.

There was a simple latch holding it closed. Ryoga looked around once more, and then he opened the briefcase. Nestled in the black velvet lining were twelve large pink rocks, crystals filled with light, Barianite that was larger and brighter than any Ryoga had ever seen. He'd heard about the exorbitant prices of the barely-glowing pink powder that was common place all over Heartland now, but this was the real stuff, almost blinding, worth its weight in gold.

He closed the case and hefted it; he expected an alarm to go off, or for something to happen, from the way Droite had handled the case, but nothing did. It could be a silent alarm. The case would be rigged to blow. It could be anything. Which meant he had to leave quickly.

There was no window in the office, so Ryoga had to risk the door. He opened it to an empty hallway, to silence, and he fled.

He found a door leading out back without running into anyone else, and he ran across the city to the hospital. His lungs burned like the air was on fire. His legs ached like he'd been beaten. The briefcase kept knocking into him as he sprinted, and every time it did it left bruises. Everything around him seemed to be blurred; later, he wouldn't remember what route he'd taken or the near misses with cars.

But no one tried to stop him.

Ryoga reached the hospital, and thought the night nurse gave him an odd look, she let him sneak into Rio's room. He approached the bed, where Rio lay still as death, and set the briefcase beside opened it, and gently lifted out the first stone. He set it beside her hand, and when he placed her palm over it, the light drained into her, seeping away into her skin. The heart monitor beeped faster.

"Hey, Astral."

"Yuuma." Astral floated upside down over Yuuma's hammock. "You are awake."

"I was just thinking." Yuuma held up the card he'd been carrying around since the moment the Key activated, the one that street duelist had left behind when he'd run away after he'd lost. Yuuma could still remember the frightened look in his blue eyes before he'd fled. He hadn't even given Yuuma his name.

He wondered if the duelist was in danger. If he were lonely. If he had noticed that his Black Ray Lancer was missing.

"We should go look for that guy again tomorrow."

"He does not have a Numbers," Astral said. His head was cocked to the side. "And he is dangerous, is he not?"

"Nah." Yuuma tucked the card back into his deck case, next to Hope. "I could tell from his duel. I bet he's cool."

"Then perhaps tomorrow, we will find him."

"Yeah," Yuuma said. He could feel his heart beating fast. There was something exciting about to happen, he thought. He could feel it.


	2. Splash Capture

"I can't believe you made me get up early on a school day." Yuuma kicked at the street as they walked. They were passing Heartland General now, and there were people everywhere despite the faint morning sun only just having risen; doctors in white coats, nurses in scrubs, patients with sick and somber faces, coming off the trains and out of cars lined up along the curb.

The last time Yuuma had come here, Kazuma had been in the hospital. Yuuma touched the Key hanging around his neck; now that Kazuma was gone, all that was left of him was his deck, and the Key, and the memories. He had disappeared; no bones to bury, no ashes to spread, just the hole in Yuuma's life and the echo of his Kattobingu in Yuuma's heart.

Seeing the hospital depressed him; Yuuma hoped he'd never need to come here again.

"Yuuma."

"I could have slept in. We haven't even _seen_ any Numbers."

"Yuuma."

"You're so anno —"

"There." Astral pointed. Yuuma followed the white-blue line of his arm and saw a familiar head of purple hair, long tendrils like an octopus's, a few yards away. "Is that not the duelist you were looking for?"

It was him, Yuuma thought. The duelist whose Black Ray Lancer he had.

Yuuma waved at him, but he wasn't looking in his direction. "Hey!"

That got a response — the duelist stopped him and started to run in the opposite direction. There was something off about his gait; he was too slow, too unsteady. He was running away, Yuuma thought, and why, he didn't know, but he couldn't let happen. He had to give back the card, and he didn't even know that guy's name, and maybe his eyes were not as blue as Yuuma remembered, best if Yuuma checked to be sure —

Yuuma caught up, reaching out to steady him, but the duelist jerked his arm away before Yuuma could touch him.

"What do you want?"

He was swaying a little on his feet. There were dark circles under his eyes, a black bruise on his chest half-hidden by the cut of his shirt. He was white-faced and though his hair was damp and he looked clean enough, his clothes were torn: a hole in one knee, frayed cuffs, the fabric over the elbows worn thin. The strands of hair around his face were thick and shiny, and Yuuma felt a sudden urge, to reach out and brush the hair off Shark's face and behind his ear.

"Are you okay?" Yuuma held out his hand again, because with every passing second he looked more like he might fall down, and this time the duelist let Yuuma grip him by the elbow. "What's your name?"

Wide blue eyes focused on him. "…Shark."

"I'm Yuuma. Yuuma Tsukumo." Yuuma squeezed Shark's arm reassuringly. He'd looked much better the first time they'd met — he'd be snarky and angry and full of tension. He looked around and spotted a cafe across the street. It was empty. "You should sit down, come on."

"Leave me alone," Shark said. He kept glancing over his shoulder, eying the crowd around him, even though they were mostly being ignored. Maybe he was in trouble, Yuuma thought, remembering Kotori's warnings about delinquents and taking care of himself. But Shark didn't seem to be a danger to anyone but himself.

He dragged Shark across the road and into the cafe; Shark protested, but he didn't pull away again, and he slid into the other side of the booth. His fingers were ice cold.

"You still haven't told me what you want."

Yuuma dug Black Ray Lancer out of his deck case and slid it across the table. Shark tucked it into his jacket. There were menus on the table; the pictures of cake made Yuma's stomach growl and his mouth water. He'd left his lunch at home today because of Astral; Astral didn't need to eat, so he often ignored the fact that Yuma did.

The look in Shark's eye when he saw them reminded Yuuma of the first two months after his parents disappeared — Akari scrambling for work, empty hours, the silence where his parents had laughed — and the hunger, because sometimes there wasn't food. When the waitress came by to take their order, Yuuma ordered two pieces of cake and two cups of coffee.

"Do you go to a private school?" Yuuma asked. Shark wasn't wearing a uniform. And maybe some conversation would relax him.

"No."

"Do you live near here?"

"No."

"Your deck is pretty cool. I guess you must really like sharks, right?"

Yuuma expected another 'no' from Shark, sharp and hard, like a door was being slammed in Yuuma's face, but instead Shark's expression softened.

"It was a gift from my dad."

"Mine was too!" Someone sitting a table nearby looked up, and Yuuma rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as he lowered his voice. "He must be proud of you — you're really strong! I almost lost and —"

He could tell from the way Shark's eyes dropped to the table that he'd said the wrong thing.

"Sorry."

"Whatever."

"My parents vanished on an expedition when I was six." Yuuma smiled sadly as Shark's eyes flicked back up to his face. "But since I have his deck, it's like he's still here with me…"

There was a steel fang hanging around Shark's neck. He toyed with it as Yuuma waited for a response; his shoulders had pulled back a bit, the tension eased.

The waitress brought their food. Yuuma nearly forgot about his own cake for a moment, distracted by the way Shark ate — he didn't waste so much as a crumb, and he made no mess, but the cake was gone very quickly — before he bit into his own. It was light, fluffy, and sweet, and Yuuma was hungry, and before long there were two empty cups and two empty plates between them.

"What are you doing out here?" Shark asked. "It's early."

"I was going to sleep in, but then Astral woke me up."

"Astral?"

Astral had been very clear with Yuuma about telling strangers about him and the Numbers. _It's not safe,_ he'd said. _You must be careful._

He couldn't remember what the danger was, though, which made Yuuma question if it actually existed. All the Numbers duelists they'd dueled so far were fine once Yuuma won the duel.

"Uh…my…imaginary friend!"

"Your imaginary friend woke you up."

"…yes?"

"That was careless of you," Astral said, and Yuuma had nearly forgotten he was there, watching Yuuma and probably memorizing everything about this moment so that he could bring it up the next time Yuuma made a mistake dueling. He turned and glared at him, and Astral sighed, and then Yuuma realized that he was glaring at an invisible person and stopped.

"So you're just hanging out at the hospital."

"I was supposed to be collecting Numbers but —" Yuuma scrambled. "Uh, the card shop was closed! So I couldn't buy any Numbers cards!"

People were staring at them again.

"Numbers — that was that XYZ monster you wouldn't shut up about. Hope."

Yuuma couldn't use Hope against Shark, because of Astral's life being at risk every time he played it, but he had wanted to — he had some XYZ monsters of his own, now, but none of them were as good as Hope, who always gave Yuuma a warm feeling when it was on the field.

Although maybe he shouldn't have said all that to Shark while they were dueling. But Shark didn't even have a Numbers, so it was probably safe, wasn't it?

_Maybe if I just fudge the details,_ Yuuma thought. _That duel with Tokunosuke was pretty funny, right? I'll cheer Shark up._

The story of Tokunosuke and his two-sided viewpoint didn't quite get a smile, but the crease between his brows shrank, and when Yuuma exaggerated his own mistakes for Shark's benefit he got a tiny smirk (okay, Yuuma admitted, maybe he had been kind of overexcited in that duel).

The longer Yuuma talked, the more alert Shark looked. He straightened up, and leaned forward, and they kept making eye contact, and Yuuma wanted to reached out and touch Shark's hand where it rested on the table, but he remembered how Shark had flinched away before and he didn't. He told Shark about how when he was seven Kazuma took him mountain climbing and showed him how Kattobingu was written in the stars. He told him about how last year Akari had won a prize for journalism and they'd gotten lost on the way back from the ceremony and ended up standing on the side of the road in the rain. Shark almost laughed when Yuuma described Akari's temper, which as terrifying, and he wondered if there was someone in Shark's life like that — someone who scolded him, and fussed over him.

"Yuuma."

"Shh, Astral," Yuuma hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

"Yuuma —"

"Don't you have school?" Shark asked.

Yuuma looked at the clock on the wall nearest. And then he looked at it again, and again, because it couldn't be correct, and oh no, he would never make it to school in five minutes and the teacher would call Akari and then he'd be dead.

"Astral, why didn't you warn me?" Yuuma asked as he snatched up his bag and threw the money for the cake on the table. Shark raised an eyebrow at him, and oh no, Yuuma was going to be that weird guy who talks to himself in Shark's memory, wasn't he, _thanks Astral for making me look uncool,_ Yuuma thought.

"I go to Heartland Academy," Yuuma said as he pulled the strap of his bag over his shoulder and tried to remember which train line would take him to school. "Me and my friends hang out in the plaza by the station there after school! You should hang out with us!"

"I —"

"We can have a rematch!" Yuuma yelled over his shoulder, as somewhere a clock tower rang and school started across the city and he sprinted out the door, Astral's voice in his ear reminding him to keep their secrets. His heart was pounding; whether it was front that last look on Shark's face, more amused than troubled, or from the fact that he was going to miss first period, he didn't know.

"Kaito-sama? It's Droite."

Kaito pulled his phantom hand out of the defeated duelist's chest. The soul was bright blue, the same as all the others, and with it came the Numbers card she'd wielded against him. Kaito kept his collected Numbers in a separate box from his actual deck, and once the card was secured, he nodded at Orbital 7 to bring up Droite's call.

Her holographic face was stern — mouth set, eyes narrowed — and he was relieved. Droite was a solemn person, but the anxiety that had been in her eyes the last time they'd spoken was gone.

"Droite."

"We caught him." She turned the phone, and he caught a glimpse of a chair with Shark tied to it. His head was lolling to one side; he must have put up a fight. "He's not talking, and we've wasted too much time trying to find him."

"Where was he?"

"Hiding out in a condemned building by the water tower," Droite said. "The two who brought him to the Bright Heart didn't know much. We had to cross-reference his face against all the traffic camera footage, and even then Gauche and I didn't find him until we cleared the neighborhood on foot."

She took a deep breath. "He was alone, Kaito. There was nothing on him, and there's nothing on the footage from the Bright Heart to show how he moved the case without blowing himself up."

"If someone else has the technology to stabilize the Barianite, our operation is over."

The Barianite was the reason there were so many duelists — and by extension, so many possessions by Numbers — happening in Heartland City. If someone else could stabilize it and use it, then they would lose control of the market, and they wouldn't be able to maintain the levels of energy needed to fuel the Sphere Field Cannon. Kaito swallowed. The supply of Barianite was restricted by the Barians as it was. If they started losing it to thieves, there would be nothing left for Haruto.

"We're holding him in the basement of the Burnt Heart. Come and see if you can get anything out of him."

The Burnt Heart was another of Heartland's dueling clubs; it was also, as far as Kaito knew, Heartland's base of operations. He rarely had occasion to be there, and Mr. Heartland made his skin crawl.

Kaito nodded. The screen went dark, and Orbital 7 transformed into glider mode and carried him into the night sky. Among the stars, Kaito could think more clearly.

…he would have to tell Droite and Gauche how he'd met Shark, now, and that would be unpleasant. Worse yet, the information would get passed onto Tron and the Arclights as well. Chris would know.

_I was careless_, Kaito thought. _I assumed he wasn't skilled enough to steal the Barianite, if he had to lower himself to selling his body for information._

_Then again, who am I to judge him for that? I've sold myself, too._

The roof of the Burnt Heart was flat — perfect for an easy landing. Kaito walked down the stairs with Orbital 7 complaining behind him about useless fish, heart pounding even more than usual. The pain was beginning to come more frequently.

Gauche and Droite were waiting, on the other side of the room from where Shark was cuffed to a chair. There was blood spattered across his jacket.

"Where did you find him?" Gauche asked.

Kaito winced. He glanced over at Shark, checking to make sure he was unconscious still, and then he told them.

He kept it as short as possible trying to drain all the emotion out of his voice, but neither of them could hide their disgust. Droite recovered first, and she told him that Shark, real name Ryoga Kamishiro, was an orphan — foster mother had declared him a run away a few years ago — and that other than an appearance in the Nationals last year, he was a ghost. No arrests, no one who knew what he did with his time, and his only living relative was in a coma at Heartland General after a fire.

"No track marks on him." Gauche said. "He's not using the Barianite for himself, it wasn't on him, and no one else is selling it."

"If he'd sold it, we'd know. There would be energy spikes out on the street by now." Kaito had been tracking energy levels since Droite had let him know the case had been taken. Things were normal.

"Get him to talk," Droite said flatly. "Mr. Heartland is getting impatient. He and Tron are meeting with the Barians soon."

The Barians, Kaito understood, were not particularly merciful. And with Arclights hunting successfully for Numbers every night, Heartland — and by extension, Droite and Gauche — would be taking the fall.

"Leave us alone. I'll find out what we need to know."

Their footsteps echoed into silence as the door swung shut behind them. There was a pocketknife, blood on the tip, left sitting on a table. Kaito walked over to the chair, and inhaled, slowly, steeling himself for what would no doubt be unpleasant.

And then he grabbed Shark's — Ryoga's, he corrected himself — head by the hair and jerked it upright.

"What the fuck," Ryoga snapped, and Kaito let him go.

"Where's the Barianite?"

"Fuck you, too, asshole." Ryoga bared his teeth at him. They were surprisingly white, considering his living situation.

"Let me explain something to you."

Kaito picked up the knife. There was a long thin scratch on Ryoga's face, still bleeding. Had Droite put it there, or Gauche? Droite was more precise, but then Gauche knew the stakes. He was protective of Haruto, and he, too, could be cruel.

"You are a liability." Kaito pressed the edge of the blade against Ryoga's throat; a line of fresh blood appeared there. A drop of blood trailed down his throat. He froze, but Kaito caught the tremble in his hands where they were cuffed to the arms of the chair. "We tracked you down. We know that you acted alone. Which means that unless you make yourself useful to me right now, I'm going to cut your throat."

Ryoga looked at him. His mouth curled. "Go ahead," he said. "Have fun trying to extract the answers you want from my corpse."

His tone was defiant. But his hands betrayed him again.

"Answer my questions," Kaito said. "Maybe you'll live. Or don't answer them and I'll kill you. Your choice."

The words were easier to say than Kaito had thought they would be. Haruto's gaunt face was there in his mind; Haruto was so different now, crueler, colder, always asking for screams. It was only fitting that Kaito join him there, in whatever darkness had overtaken him.

He waited, watching the blood drip down Ryoga's throat, trying not to imagine the spray of blood that would burst forth if he —

"Fine." Ryoga shuddered. "I don't have the Barianite. I—I gave it away."

"Gave it to who?"

Ryoga didn't answer, even when Kaito widened the cut in his neck and he had to grit his teeth to muffle a pained noise.

"I can't tell you," he said finally. "Kill me if you want."

Kaito considered it. There was more he wanted to know. And Ryoga might still give something away.

"How did you get the Barianite out of the building safely?"

"Why do you guys keep asking me that question?" Ryoga rolled his eyes. "I picked up the briefcase. I opened the door. I left. It wasn't even locked — what the hell were you expecting to happen?"

Kaito stared at him. Was he serious? Droite and Gauche wore protective gloves that kept the case stable when they moved it. And they ran all the stones through a stabilizing device, a glass tube that made it safe to handle — Kaito had seen it done for Haruto's treatments. Moving that briefcase barehanded should have left Ryoga with third degree burns at the very least.

Ryoga's expression didn't change, though, so Kaito left him alone. He found Droite and Gauche's safe, where there was still some Barianite left, and a pair of gloves for himself. He gingerly lifted the smallest piece there, no bigger than a grain of rice, and brought it back to where Ryoga was waiting.

"Watch." Kaito threw the piece across the room.

It burst into flames where it hit the floor, smoke billowing everywhere, flashes of pink lightning in the air, and it left a crater and a ring of scorch marks on the concrete.

"You handled it without gloves?"

Ryoga nodded. He was too shocked to speak.

"How did you find me?"

"The duelists you put in the hospital were from a gang. They got the duel footage off his D-gazer and saw you." Ryoga closed his eyes briefly. Whatever he was remembering distressed him. "I heard there was a hit out on a guy with a Photon Deck who left all his opponents in comas. Every duelist you fought was rolling Barianite. I figured you were targeting them."

"And?" He was holding something back. Why had Ryoga been interested in a hit on a duelist like Kaito in the first place?

"My sister went into a coma after she was in a duel. I thought maybe it was related somehow."

That had not been in Ryoga's profile, and Kaito filed it away for later. Gauche had told him it was a fire. The discrepancy probably wasn't important, but…

"That Barianite was valuable," Kaito said. "And since you can't replace it, you'll have to repay us some other way."

He found the keys to Ryoga's cuffs on a shelf, and he undid them. Ryoga stood up, rubbing his wrists as he did, and didn't attempt to bolt immediately. He wasn't a complete idiot, then. Kaito was still uncertain as to how intelligent he really was — if Ryoga was telling the truth, his stealing the Barianite successfully had been out of his control entirely.

_It's odd,_ Kaito thought. _If he can somehow manipulate the Barianite on his own, then maybe that's something we can use against the Barians. Killing him would be a waste._

"Get up."

"What are you doing?"

"We're going for a walk." Kaito gestured at Orbital 7, who had had the sense to remain quiet throughout the interrogation. "Orbital. Find me a target."

He grabbed Ryoga firmly by the arm.

"Do you still have a deck?"

"I'm not fucking dueling you —"

"Where is it?"

"I stashed it."

"We'll pick it up on our way." Kaito dragged him towards the door. "I want to see if you can handle it."

"Handle what?"

"Hunting."


	3. Dark Hunter

"Hold out your arm," Kaito ordered.

They were in a warehouse in a part of the city that Ryoga had been hoping to avoid. It was grimy and grey, and cold, and at any minute, they were going to be found and Ryoga was going to have to run for it.

He glanced down at the shiny new duel disk that had just been strapped to his forearm, his deck secured in the slot, and didn't move. Kaito ordering him around had been annoying when he was tied to a chair and was rapidly making Ryoga's blood pressure rise; only the knowledge that Kaito would probably kill him if he did anything stupid kept him from punching him repeatedly in the face.

Not only had Kaito interrogated him at knifepoint and dragged him all over the city so that Ryoga could retrieve his deck, but he had been hanging onto Ryoga's arm most of the way, leaving bruises, and if he didn't stop touching him, Ryoga thought, he was going to start demanding he get paid for it.

Kaito slapped a long thin tube to the underside of the duel disk. "This is a duel anchor. It'll hold your opponent so they can't run away."

"Why do I need —"

"Well, well. Look who's turned up."

Ryoga turned slowly around.

It was Rikuo and Kaio. _Of course it's them,_ he thought, as Kaito started messing with his duel disk again. It was a newer model than Ryoga's stolen, secondhand one, left behind in a dumpster somewhere as Kaito hauled him across the city, new even than Rikuo and Kaio's disks.

Speaking of disks, Ryoga noted that Kaio and Rikuo were both wearing theirs.

The two stared at him. They were smiling, which was always a bad sign; Rikuo and Kaio were never happy to see him unless they were going to do something to him, like demand that he let them fuck him or make him participate in one of their stupid plans in a way that was sure to get him arrested. And since they had brought him to the Bright Heart and Ryoga had used that opportunity to steal a case of Barianite…

"Did you think you could just use us, Ryoga?" Rikuo asked. "After everything we've done for you?"

"The last time I saw you you told me I was your bitch and I should shut up," Ryoga said. "You haven't done shit for me."

"Mr. Heartland was going to have us killed," Kaio said. "Luckily, he said that if we defeated you, we were off the hook. Sorry."

"You can apologize after I've beaten your asses," Ryoga said, with bravado that he didn't feel.

"Here." At that moment Kaito slapped a button on Ryoga's disk, and two long ropes of light fired out from underneath it and hooked onto Rikuo and Kaio's respective disks. "If you finish them off, I'll take you to Tron. You can see about repaying your debt with something other than your life."

"And if he loses?" Rikuo asked. He sounded suspiciously eager. Ryoga could guess what would happen if he did lose, and the thought made him ill, so he put it out of his mind. He would just have to win. Even if he could run away, Rikuo and Kaio would make his life miserable until they had their revenge.

When was the last time he had dueled? It had been against Yuuma, and he had lost that one. Ryoga replayed it turn by turn in his mind as Rikuo and Kaio activated their disks. He had made mistakes, and that was why he had lost. It wasn't about skill, he told himself as he drew his hand and tried to block out his opponents' taunting. He could have won. He could still win, if he had to.

He heard the words 'cheating at the Nationals' and bit his lip so hard it nearly bled. Ryoga stared at his cards. Traps and spells and monsters stared back at him. The eyes of the sharks depicted seemed to be judging him; they were predators, and he was a fish on the line, about to be gutted if he couldn't squirm away.

_Don't think of yourself as prey._ Ryoga took a deep breath as Rikuo took the first turn. He could not yet look up and meet their eyes, meet their mocking gazes. Rikuo and Kaio were second rate duelists at best. They had been trying to break into the underground circuit and had had little success. They were only challenging Ryoga so confidently because they assumed, because Ryoga was willing to leverage sex for protection, that Ryoga was weak.

They had probably never had to give up anything, and the resentment galvanized him. It was his turn.

He drew.

Rikuo and Kaio were even more disgusting in person.

Kaito had spoken to them briefly, after Droite and Gauche had finished with them, to tell them where to meet him. They were Numbers duelists, according to the readings Orbital 7 had taken — the Bright Heart must have gotten them fired up enough for possession — and he had thought that it would be a good opportunity to see what Ryoga was made of. Would he hurt his own comrades to save himself? Could he handle the stress of being a Numbers Hunter?

They weren't comrades. Judging from Rikuo and Kaio's leers, in fact, they knew Ryoga the same way Kaito had, and the implications of Rikuo's casual question — _and if he loses?_ — made his stomach turn. Killing Ryoga was one thing: unpleasant, but at least a justifiable evil. Kaito could hardly leave him to the hands of Rikuo and Kaio, though. It would be more merciful just to kill him, he thought, and that meant he would have to remain here until Ryoga was done dueling.

As he came to that decision, Orbital 7 beeped.

"Kaito-sama?"

"What is it, Orbital 7?"

"It's Tron, Kaito-sama."

Nothing else needed to be said. As much as Kaito loathed Tron, he could not refuse his summons. But Ryoga was not dueling particularly well at that moment, and Kaito calculated the odds in his head: would he be back in time for Ryoga to lose, or…

"Stay here, Orbital," Kaito said. He would have to go to Tron alone, and risk it. Ryoga couldn't be left, not if he continued to play this badly. His field was wide open, and Rikuo and Kaio were using a standard method of tag duel cheating that meant they would have Numbers on the field within a turn or two.

What a pity, Kaito thought. Ryoga was going to be useless after all.

_Can only be destroyed by other Numbers._

Ryoga stared up at Numbers 61 in silent terror. Even if he could inflict damage on it, that would take a turn or two to even set up, and in that time it could use its effect to chip away at his lifepoints. He couldn't even defend against it — and with Numbers 19's effect, no doubt chosen for this reason, Rikuo could just keep reloading the overlay units on his monster.

He was dimly aware of a voice in his brain telling him to focus, to get it together for Rio if not for himself, but the fear was overwhelming. Nothing seemed to make sense - he could barely read his own cards — why had he even thought he could win? He hadn't won a duel in years, the last time he had dueled he had lost to some stupid kid —

_"He must be proud of you — you're really strong! I almost lost and —"_

His father had given him some of these cards.

Ryoga blinked several times. He touched the fang at his throat again; the photo was still there, so clear in his memory that he never needed to look at it. His family, long ago when they were still all together. His parents, who he remembered as endlessly smiling and endlessly kind and too good to be true. His father had tried to teach him to duel, when Ryoga was still small, but Ryoga had grasped the game much quicker than he had, and before long it had been Ryoga who was trying to teach _him._

He hadn't thought of his parents in what felt like years — the memories were always tinged with what he thought would be their disappointment, if they could see him now — but suddenly there was his father's voice, reading to him from the rule book.

Ryoga swallowed the lump in his throat and looked at his cards again. He couldn't afford to be sentimental right now.

"I summon Starfish!" The monster appeared in a flash of light. Ryoga stared at Rikuo's Numbers, searching for a weak point. One had to exist. There were no invincible cards. What could he do to get rid of it, quickly?

_Monster effect_, he thought. _It's just a monster effect. Effects can be negated._

"I special summon Shark Stickers!"

Ryoga fumbled at his Extra Deck. It was there, he thought, the card that could win him the duel. He had almost lost it, and then, incredibly, it had been returned to him.

He had pulled it from a pack while he was redoing his deck for Regionals. Things had been different then, less desperate — Ryoga had been focused only on dueling, sure that if he won against Rio, somehow, that would change everything, and he could go home again. It had spoken to him, the dark lancer, something about the image that resonated within him so much that he had added it to his Extra Deck without a second thought.

"I overlay the level three Shark Stickers and Starfish!"

Light coalesced in the air above him, an enormous swirling spiral that made his heart pound. The monsters glowed and shot upward, feeding the overlay network, creating the spiral that meant something powerful was coming. It was only AR, but it was still magnificent.

"I xyz summon Black Ray Lancer!"

He had forgotten that his monsters were beautiful, until Black Ray Lancer took the field. It was fierce. It was powerful. It was things that Ryoga was not, and it lent him strength.

_The hell am I giving in to fucking Rikuo and Kaio,_ he thought, and he finally met Rikuo's eyes. It was time for a counterattack.

"Oh, Kaito."

Tron spoke up just as Kaito reached the door, before he could make his escape. Orbital 7 had just tried to reach him. The duel was over, and it had gone on for longer than Kaito had estimated, and he was anxious to see the results for himself.

"V and the others are far too busy hunting." Tron toyed with the end of his braid. Kaito was certain he did it only to mock him. "So you won't mind taking charge of training our newest recruit yourself."

"I'm busy hunting."

"Make time for him, then. Or maybe he can replace you?"

Kaito had no answer to that, none that he could make to Tron and still live, so he walked away. It was entirely possible that Ryoga had lost and there would be nothing for him to do but eliminate him, and what had his life become, Kaito thought, that he was looking at a murder as the better option.

Orbital 7 was calling him again. As soon as he was out of Tron's hearing, Kaito answered.

"Well?"

"He won, Kaito-sama. I have him here, just as you requested. He collected the Numbers."

"What do you mean?" Kaito hadn't given Ryoga anything to collect the Numbers with. "He collected the Numbers with what?"

"With nothing, Kaito-sama. He just held out his hand, and the cards flew into his fingers."

"And his opponents?"

"They ran away…"

Kaito only realized he was clenching his jaw in rage when he felt the pain. He had spent months perfecting his Photon Mode and reconfiguring Orbital 7 so he could hunt Numbers, and even then there were side effects, side effects that were literally killing him and leaving his opponents as soulless shells. Tron refused to share the crest technology he had given his sons, so Kaito had had to devise everything he needed on his own. The installation process he had used to outfit himself for Photon Mode had nearly ended him before he had the chance to use it.

And here was this — this brat, Kaito thought, this whore who stole cases of Barianite without protective gear and won duels despite having no dueling record in over year and collected Numbers with his bare hands, without knowing what they were, without even needing them the way Kaito needed them.

_I could just kill him anyway. Tron wouldn't care._

He felt sick. Was that what he'd become? Someone who Tron would approve of?

Ryoga could still be useful. If he were alive, he could be studied and understood and Kaito, too, could become a better Hunter. He could still save Haruto even with a fifth person competing for the scarce supply of Numbers in Heartland City.

"Bring him to headquarters," Kaito said. "And get me a blood sample."

Ryoga stared at himself in the mirror.

It looked like a mirror, anyways; he suspected that the reflective walls of the circular chamber he'd been locked in were really made of one-way glass, and that Kaito was watching him from the outside. Let him, Ryoga thought, he'd show Kaito that he wasn't afraid.

Even if he was.

After the duel, the robot and Kaito had brought him to a lab. It was white and cold, the light glaring, the walls covered in holoscreens and computers, a stretcher with straps dangling off the sides accompanied by a tray of scalpels and syringes sitting to one side. It was like a horror movie, and Ryoga had laid there while Kaito did what he told Ryoga was 'preparation'.

Some of it was just cosmetic — new clothes, much like his old ones, and a hot shower — and some of it was terrifying. Kaito had injected d-gazer nanites directly into his eye while he was strapped to a table, and then implanted trackers in his blood, and taped electrodes to him while Ryoga had to run on a treadmill and stretch and sit in a room while music blasted and the sound of a baby crying played.

Kaito took notes the whole time, taking readings off the machines Ryoga was hooked up to. He prodded the swollen, red skin around Ryoga's eye where the nanites were settling. He recorded height and weight, and he would sometimes ask Ryoga questions, like how much pain he could withstand, or how long could he go without eating, that made him want to bolt for the door.

But there was no escape. When Kaito was finished, he handed Ryoga his new duel disk and led him to the circular chamber.

"This is to increase your strength," Kaito had said as the doors slid shut. "We'll stop when you can't take any more."

Ryoga tugged at the cuffs of his new jacket — the fabric felt warmer than his last one had, but it was still freezing in the chamber, so cold he could see his breath — and traced the bruise marks on his arm where the trackers had been injected. The needles had stung and the tests had been frightening, but it was his reflection, his face that if he could be squinted could have been a photograph from before, that was worst of all.

Without the trappings of a life in streets, he looked like the Ryoga of the Nationals again.

A whirring noise from above distracted him. Three holographic projectors dropped down from the ceiling, pointing directly at him, and the duel disk on his arm beeped at him. Ryoga frowned at it — what did it —

It shocked him. He cried out in pain and slapped the power button, and the disk clicked into place, the monster zones fanning out for use. The projectors all lit up, one by one, and then there were three monsters Ryoga had never seen before it. Each of them had a glowing number somewhere in its body. He noticed that his life points meter was flashing at him, 4000 in bright glowing digits, and then his disk beeped again.

This time he didn't wait. He drew a hand of cards before it could shock him and examined them. Was this the second turn, if the monsters were already there? Was he allowed to attack? That would affect his strategy —

— another sharp shock that made Ryoga drop a card, and in the brief time it took him to pick up the card the monster on the left roared and blasted him with a stream of fire.

It was hot, and it hurt, and Ryoga could smell his singed hair as he was thrown back against the wall, hard, cracking his head against the metal and crumpling to the floor. He had kept his grip on his cards, though. The middle monster opened its mouth, and if he just sat there, there was be more pain, so Ryoga threw down a monster in defense mode and a trap card.

Another life point meter and two set cards appeared on the other side of the field. Now it was a real duel.

Three tense turns passed. Each of the Numbers had a dangerous ability, and the duelist he was playing was cautious, but once Ryoga brought Black Ray Lancer onto the field, he gained the upper hand.

Ryoga defeated all three Numbers, barely, his life points down to two hundred before he could lower his opponent's to zero. He breathed a sigh of relief.

The next duel started with his life points halved. Two miraculously good draws let him win that one, too.

Two turns into the third duel Ryoga realized his Black Ray Lancer was no longer in his Extra Deck.

By the fifth duel he had no Extra Deck at all, and the loss was accompanied by a long hard shock, by an arc of pain that left him on his knees, by the ominous sound of the life point meter resetting for round six.

"He's lasted longer than I expected."

Ryoga had made it to the twentieth duel, and he was improving, too, despite the handicaps. Once he could win consistently without the Extra Deck, Kaito would add some other constraint — perhaps up the ability of the computerized opponent another notch — and he would wait until Ryoga learned to beat that one, too.

Kaito felt a stab of pride and then squashed it. It was bad for him if Ryoga succeeded; he would be one more person to compete with. He had already spared his life out of mercy; he couldn't allow himself to think that he was anything but an enemy.

"He's nowhere as impressive as you were, Kaito-sama," Orbital 7 said.

The lab had been the Arclight lab once. Byron had conducted his research here, back when he was still a man and he and Faker were on good terms. Chris had worked here, too, and Thomas and Michael would show up after school to interrupt and demand their father come home and entertain them.

He and Chris had dueled here, in this very chamber — before, when it was just play, when Chris was promising that he'd teach Kaito everything he knew, when Chris followed him into the showers when they were done and held him close under the stream of hot water.

And then V had tested him here again, when Kaito decided that he had to become a Numbers Hunter, for Haruto's sake. He had shown V his Photon Mode here, desperate to make V see him as a man. This had been the first place that Galaxy Eyes roared for him, and even after everything that had happened, the memory could make Kaito smile.

Unlike V, whose eyes gave away no feeling, whose sterile touch had left Kaito furious as he told Tron that Kaito was 'acceptable', his dragon would not betray him.

On the other side of the glass, Ryoga was glaring at the holograms, teeth bared, fists clenched. He was staggering to his feet more slowly every time, but he continued to stand.

_"That's enough, Chris!" Faker said. His voice shook over the intercom. "Kaito's been dueling for days!"_

_"Kaito is strong," Chris said, and the corner of his mouth turned upwards. Kaito watched him smile, and even in his exhausted state he thought about kissing Chris. He was sweaty and pale and the room had begun to spin but even so his mind was clear. He could see the path to victory clearly._

_"That's right." It was his turn, and he drew. "I'll show you what I'm capable of!"_

"…Kaito-sama?"

"Call me when he's finished." Kaito turned around and began walking away. There were too many memories here, too many familiar motions in Ryoga struggling to survive his first day of training.

He had lost count of how many duels he'd fought, how many he'd won, all the Numbers blurring together in his mind. The room kept tilting. Ryoga had to keep a hand on his disk, fingers spread to touch all the buttons, because exhaustion had slowed his reflexes and hurt his coordination. _Don't stop,_ he thought, _don't…give…up…_

WIN, the AR flashed at him, and he closed his eyes against the light and the pain, just for a moment.

When he woke he was somewhere else.

Ryoga rolled over and found that the floor underneath him was bare concrete, cold under his palms. He was still dressed the way he had been in the circular chamber, but his duel disk had been removed and his deck was back in his belt case. He was sore all over, and his chest ached a little when he breathed deeply. He sat up on his knees and rubbed at his eyes.

There was a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling above him. It was a small room, with dusty shelving on one wall stocked with brown glass bottles marked as hazardous. The door to Ryoga's left was cracked open, so he hadn't been locked in. His duel disk was on one of the shelves, and there was a cell phone next to it that was equally shiny and new. He strapped on the duel disk, running a hand over the dark blue casing to check for damage, and then picked up the phone.

One new message, the screen read. Ryoga hit play and then jumped as a hologram appeared midair.

"Ryoga Kamishiro." Standing before him was the creepiest child Ryoga had ever seen — overdressed in ruffles and mint green, light blonde hair braided over his shoulder, a high-pitched voice like nails on a chalkboard, and half of his face was covered in an iron mask. It looked like it had come off a suit of armor somewhere. It was disturbing.

"We haven't been formally introduced yet, have we? I'm Tron. It's me who decided your life should be spared."

Ryoga rolled his eyes.

"In exchange for the Barianite you stole, you'll be collecting Numbers for me. I'm sure Kaito explained everything to you." From Tron's smile, Ryoga guessed he knew Kaito had explained nothing, had just experimented on him and made him duel until he dropped and then left him on the cold, hard ground. "You'll collect two Numbers a week, Ryoga, and when you've finished repaying me, you'll get a little salary in Barianite. Isn't that nice?"

There was a pause. Even though it was a hologram, Ryoga still didn't like looking into Tron's eyes.

"I'll be here to personally collect the Numbers at the end of the week. I look forward to seeing what you can do." The hologram flickered off, and Ryoga pocketed the phone.

He left the closet and wandered the halls until he found a door that led outside. It was an empty building, silent, with every door he passed locked and every hallway identical and in decay. There was no sign on the building to tell him what it was, or where it was, although Kaito had referred to it as headquarters. Ryoga would have to keep track of it so he could return.

Later, though. Right now there was the pressing issue of where, exactly, he could get a Numbers. From what he had gathered from Kaito's training and from dueling Rikuo and Kaio, it seemed he had to find duelists that had them already and beat them to obtain them. But how could he do that? How could he identify a duelist with a Numbers, unless they outright told him —

_"If I could use Hope in this you'd have lost already!"_

_"Then why don't you use it?"_

_"Hope is a special card." Yuuma preened. "It's a Numbers, and it's really strong so I can only —"_

Yuuma was looking for Numbers. Yuuma had told him so that morning in the coffee shop, that he was looking for them, because of his invisible friend — Ryoga had assumed he was just a weird kid but now he would have to rethink that — and though he'd claimed he was going to a card shop…he had seemed nervous. He had kept stopping to censor himself during the conversation. At the time Ryoga hadn't cared about any of that.

Yuuma had at least one Numbers card. That was half his quota, more if Yuuma had multiple cards, and Ryoga already had seen his level of talent and knew that he had a chance of winning. And Yuuma had told him where he went to school and where he hung out. _I could find him,_ Ryoga thought. _I could…_

And then what? Yuuma's face had lit up when he talked about Hope. Yuuma had held onto Ryoga's ace card for weeks until they met again. Ryoga swallowed, the phantom taste of the cake in his mouth. He had been kind to him, had fed him and looked after him and let Ryoga sit and bask in the way his voice rose and feel with his excitement, let RYoga forget for a little while everything that was wrong with his life.

It was stupid, Ryoga thought, he didn't even know Yuuma, not really, but the memory of his smile as he yelled that he wanted a rematch was bright in his mind, as fogged as it had been that morning. He could take Yuuma's Numbers, but that would be a poor way of repaying him.

On the other hand, Yuuma wasn't working with Kaito and the others — since if he had he wouldn't have just left Ryoga alone — so he knew about the Numbers some other way. He could answer Ryoga's questions. He would have to be careful, because Kaito had said all the Hunters were tracked and Ryoga could lead Kaito right to Yuuma, but at least it would be a start.

Ryoga headed to the nearest information booth to consult the map. He would have to find out where Heartland Academy was.

"Nii-san?"

Kaito blinked. Haruto was staring at him with his empty-eyed gaze, the diseased look that he had had for so long Kaito had almost forgotten what he used to look like when he smiled. He tugged at Kaito's shirt.

"What is it, Haruto?" Kaito pulled Haruto into his arms. He was cold, and too thin, always too thin no matter what he was fed. He had no appetite for anything anymore, except…

"I need more screams," Haruto said softly, plaintively, and Kaito nodded and embraced him and did not dare to look him in the eye.

The room was plush. There were toys, and games, and an enormous TV stacked with gaming consoles. There were trays of cakes and caramel flavored sweets. Outside the wall of windows was the Heartland Amusement Park, which his father had founded so long ago, and people were laughing down there and smiling while the ferris wheel lit up the sky. It was a perfect room for a child, and yet the food was untouched and the toys all put away neatly. Haruto was no longer a child; the disease had taken that from him too.

"Anything you want, Haruto," Kaito whispered. "I will get it for you."

"You look tired, Nii-san."

"I've just been busy."

He felt the exhaustion deep in his bones. Kaito had hunted for a while after he'd left Ryoga in a closet to recuperate, but it had been fruitless. His quota had been met, it was true, but he needed more. Haruto needed the treatments to be stronger, before he wasted away. And the Arclights were three and had the the advantage of being able to rely on each other, while Kaito hunted alone, and so he was falling behind, even thought against any one of them, he knew he could win. It was infuriating.

_I've already given up my life, but…_ Kaito shivered. _It isn't enough. I have to do more, or Haruto will never be safe._

"I have to go now," he said, and he laid Haruto down and tucked him in. He picked up a frame that had been knocked over, displaying an old portrait — baby Haruto in Kaito's arms, Orbital 7 squawking at them — and set it where Haruto could look at it. He smoothed his brother's hair one last time before he kissed his forehead and headed towards the door. There was never enough time with Haruto; Kaito was ever-conscious of the ticking clock when he was with him.

The blood sample Orbital 7 had taken was in his pocket; perhaps it was time for Kaito to see just what Ryoga was.


	4. Invitation To A Dark Sleep

Ryoga watched the sunset from Rio's room.

The view was incredible in there, one whole wall of glass, though it was wasted on Rio. The sun was always shining on her, though, and in the right light she could almost look like she were sleeping, the yellow sunlight hiding the way the coma had leeched the color from her cheeks and hollowed out her face. It was warm in there, no matter the time of day, and so Ryoga felt only slightly bad about removing the spare blanket kept under Rio's bed for himself.

The one blanket at Tron's headquarters was paper thin, and it was always cold there. Ryoga was tired of shivering.

She was stable so far, the nurse had told him as she let him in, but Ryoga knew it wouldn't last. He still owed Tron another week's worth of Numbers before he would be paid, and collecting the Numbers had proved to be difficult.

He had managed the first week, but not the second, and the punishment had been…Ryoga shook his head, banishing the memory. He'd endured worse, he reminded himself, there was nothing to be afraid of. And he hadn't been killed for his failure.

_But why leave me alive?_

The thought nagged at him, but there was nothing Ryoga could do about it, so he left it alone.

Now it was week three, and Ryoga had four days to find two Numbers, and so far he had found nothing. Spying on the lower-league dueling rings, the ones that couldn't afford clubs of their own and happened in back alleys where the streets were never paved and cars never ventured, had netted him good results so far. Barianite never reached these rings, so maybe, Ryoga had thought, Kaito wouldn't bother with them.

He had never been active in the street dueling community, though, and he had exhausted most of his knowledge already. He was going to have to find another way, and that meant…

…Yuuma.

_"Hey, Astral."_

_"Talking to your imaginary friend again?"_

_"Shark!" Yuuma smiled widely at him as he leaned against the backrest of the bunch. Ryoga noted absently there were rainbows on the pavement, refracted from somewhere, around Yuuma's feet. He was wearing a school uniform, and he was alone, and there were crowds of commuters and students all around. No one would be paying them any attention. _

Good,_ Ryoga thought._ I can just make something up to tell Kaito if he asks what I was doing.

_"Do you wanna eat lunch with me?" Yuuma asked. Ryoga's empty stomach roiled at his words, and Ryoga wanted to say no, that he just wanted a word, that he didn't want to hang out, but his mouth didn't obey him._

_"Whatever."_

_Yuuma hopped up and grabbed his hand, and Ryoga only just refrained from pulling it away. He was led off the main plaza down a side street, to a stall where an old woman with a tight grey bun and purple lipstick was selling rice balls. She eyed them as Yuuma emptied his wallet out and paid for four rice balls with a small mountain of tarnished coins; she thought they were thieves, Ryoga mused, and so he felt only mildly guilty about snagging a fifth rice ball while her attention was diverted by Yuuma's poor math skills._

_He stashed it in his jacket while Yuuma fumbled to put his wallet away without dropping anything, and they sat down on the curb outside a store with boarded up windows and a crooked FOR SALE sign nailed to the door. Yuuma handed him two of the rice balls and then, with one in each hand, began eating._

_"My grandma makes really good rice balls," Yuuma said, mouth full. "I eat 'em to power up for my duels."_

_"These aren't bad," Ryoga said as he ate. The rice was still warm. Yuuma was sitting so close to him that their elbows kept touching, and every time it happened Ryoga was surprised, because it was so strange, people touching him casually, and Yuuma was talking, he realized, and he should probably listen to what he was saying. _

_"— and then we can duel. Kotori and Tetsuo aren't here, they had a club meeting —"_

_Yuuma's face fell for a moment, and then he was back to smiling, so quickly that Ryoga wondered if he'd imagined it. But the word 'duel' reminded him of why he was here, and it wasn't just to listen to Yuuma talk._

_He wished it was, though. This was comfortable._

_"I wanted to asked you something."_

_"Okay," Yuuma said. He waited._

_Ryoga slid an arm over Yuuma's shoulder, so that he couldn't bolt for it, and Yuuma leaned against his shoulder, and it was tempting to just say '_never mind'_, but not tempting enough._

_"You collect Numbers, don't you?"_

_"I —"_

_"I know you have to take them off duelists," Ryoga said. "Don't bother. I want to how you identify the duelists who have them."_

_Yuuma glanced somewhere above Ryoga's head. "How do you know about the Numbers?"_

_He looked confused, and sincere, and it was possible that he was lying. But if Yuuma was working with the other Numbers Hunters, he would know about Ryoga already, and Ryoga would have been caught that morning they'd had coffee together. And he hadn't been. And Yuuma was so…so naive, acting like he and Ryoga were classmates — it was impossible that that was all an act._

_"You have no idea," Ryoga said flatly. "Of course you — never mind. Do you just wander around the city until you run into a duelist who has one? How do you tell?"_

_"I…" Yuuma said. "They act kinda weird once they have the Numbers. Like my teacher started hacking into the city, and Fuuya thought he was really ESPer Robin."_

_"The Numbers control them?"_

_He nodded. "Shark, it's dangerous if you —"_

_"Why are you looking for them?"_

_"They…they belong to someone else! I'm just helping him find them." Yuuma's eyes went to that spot over Ryoga's head again. Ryoga looked up, and there was nothing, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw rainbows reflected onto the pavement again._

Imaginary friend, huh?

_"Who?"_

_"An important person! The Numbers contain his — he just needs them, okay?" Yuuma crossed his arms over his chest. He was pouting, and despite the conversation, his weight was still heavy against Ryoga's shoulder. _

_There was a silence as Ryoga wondered how far he could push before Yuuma fled, and Yuuma stared off into space, brow furrowed, his half-eaten rice ball still in hand._

_"Shark?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"Are you in trouble?"_

More trouble than you could ever imagine._ "No," Ryoga said. _

_Yuuma shoved the last of the rice ball into his mouth, and wiped his hand on his jeans. Then he touched Ryoga's knee. He looked up again, and nodded, and then spoke, and distracted by the touch Ryoga almost didn't hear him._

_"We can still duel…" Yuuma said hopefully._

_Yuuma probably had at least two Numbers, if not more. Ryoga could meet his quota right now. He could get Rio what she needed tonight. Yuuma thought of him as a friend; he would never see it coming, and then Ryoga would…_

_He swallowed hard, and remembered that Yuuma had found him and fed him and given him the card that had saved him. Ryoga could defeat him now, but he would have to live with himself afterwards._

He has information. It's better if I leave him alone for now,_ Ryoga lied to himself. If he didn't collect Yuuma's Numbers, he could never see him again — he was being watched and eventually someone else would find Yuuma and take him on. Someone like Kaito._

_"It's better if you don't get involved with me."_

_"But—"_

_"You're not the only one looking for the Numbers. There are others, and if they find out about you, they'll hurt you. Don't tell anyone else about them, and don't go into the city alone at night." Ryoga sucked in a deep breath. If anyone found out about this conversation, he was sure that he'd be killed._

_"…I don't wander around," Yuuma mumbled. "Most of the Numbers have been with people I already knew. Like from school and stuff."_

_And once again, Ryoga thought, imagining a school full of students and teachers he could track, Yuuma was saving him. _

_He stood up. "Thanks for lunch."_

_"Wait — where are you —"_

_"Goodbye, Yuuma." Ryoga turned around. He walked away, away from the crowds and the plaza, and left Yuuma sitting on the curb behind him. He didn't let himself look back; he was sure, if Yuuma tried, Ryoga would be persuaded into something he couldn't do._

It wasn't safe to go to Yuuma's school directly, but most of the students took the train home, so Ryoga had scouted out the stations a stop or two down from the one nearest Heartland Academy and had begun following those who were wearing the white uniform Yuuma had worn. He had seen nothing so far, and he had no way of telling which students Yuuma was close to, so it was slow going.

_Better than nothing,_ Ryoga thought, as he brushed the loose hair out of Rio's face. It was cold comfort.

Someone knocked on the door. Ryoga jumped — who could it be?

The nurses never knocked, and the night nurse always gave him at least twenty minutes uninterrupted. It might be a visitor who was lost after hours.

Or it might be someone looking for him. Ryoga glanced around wildly, looking for a hiding space, and saw none. If he were caught here…if it was Kaito, or worse yet, Asaya, he was screwed.

He rolled himself under the bed and tugged on the sheets so that they hung down and touched the floor. The doors whooshed open. Ryoga held his breath.

"And here we have a sleeping beauty…a princess in need…just perfect for the prince's prize."

The voice was male and unfamiliar. Ryoga could see the boy's shoes, brown leather, as he walked close — too close — to Rio's bed. If he were some kind of pervert, here to do something to Rio, he was dead.

"She'll do nicely," the boy said, and this time a dark purple aura flared up around him. Ryoga couldn't see what he looked like, but he was willing to bet that if he could, there would be the mark of a Numbers on his body somewhere, burning with power.

He waited until the Numbers duelist turned to walk away, and then he edged out from under the bed, not making a sound, and followed him out the door.

The hunt was on.

* * *

"The results are the same, Kaito-sama."

Kaito didn't even look at the fourth set of test results. He knew what they would say: Ryoga was a normal human being, with nothing strange in his blood or skin or hair, except that he was too healthy for someone who was homeless. There was no energy signature, no odd foreign bodies, no trace of whatever gave him the power to take Numbers and manipulate Barianite.

He would run genetic tests, too, but he didn't have the equipment on time, and securing it discreetly would take time. Time that he didn't have. He needed to hunt.

He reached for the white cube on the lab table. There was a digital display on the front, with four zeroes displayed. Kaito laid his palm on top, and the red numbers flashed: the readings were too high, again, even though Kaito had given into Orbital's nagging and restrained himself this week to try and bring his body up to par.

He would be able to withstand two duels, and no more, before he was unable to go on. He had no Numbers as of yet and only two days left to find them, and the last five weeks had shown Ryoga to be very capable competition. He'd only failed to meet quota once. He was in good shape, and his powers, whatever they were, let him duel without any strain on his body, and meanwhile Kaito's heart was dying with every beat, his body eating itself to keep him alive.

It was unfair in the worst way. Kaito refused to believe that anyone deserved the Numbers more than his brother, and yet the universe was against them.

"Kaito-sama, perhaps one more —"

"Run the tracking algorithms. We're leaving."

Orbital 7 beeped at him in displeasure, but he transformed and grasped Kaito's shoulders. The display projected onto Kaito's left eye showed him the city below, the waves of energy rising and falling superimposed over, and the bright green dots that meant a likely target. There was a seventy percent chance that he had identified them correctly. Kaito, working on his own, had not yet found a way to make the system more accurate than that.

He would have to choose carefully.

* * *

The city was deliciously sinful, full of humans ruled by their flesh, by their lusts, by their disgusting bodies and even more disgusting emotions. The underbelly, masked by bright lights and cheap thrills, people dying and fucking only a few feet away from the amusement park full of stupid naive children — this was paradise, Vector thought, even if the others were too stuffy to appreciate it.

Mizael hated it, of course, but Mizael hated everything. Durbe was uncomfortable, no matter how he tried to play the role of leader and behave as thought he believed the ends justified the means. Alit and Gilag were easily distracted by the pretty thrills of the city, and so they did as they were told. It was all very boring, now that they were done with Tron and all that was left was supervising the humans. Vector was allowed to instill rivalries, but Durbe was so fussy about having any casualties.

He almost missed Nasch and Merag — they were cold, the two of them, and they would have accepted Vector's plan and appreciated it properly. Oh, Nasch was emotional, but he was loyal in a way that the others weren't. If Vector offered him a safe, happy Barian world, Nasch would take it even if it dripped with human blood.

He wandered the night among the thugs and whores, looking for something to amuse himself with. The moans of the Barianite addicts as he passed, the duelists with their fists clenched for battle, the Hunters flying overhead…he had masterminded it all, and even now, when he promised that he only meant well, that it was all for the sake of the Barian World, they believed him. They had no idea that Vector had his eyes on a different prize altogether.

And by the time they found out, it would be too late.

* * *

Ryoga was in his room when Kaito came back, and Kaito stood in the doorway and thought long and hard about having Orbital 7 remove him so he could sleep in peace.

He had had to duel three times, in the end, and everything hurt. He was only upright because of the lingering traces of Galaxy-Eye's power in his veins; after a duel, the rush persisted, as if his dragon were trying to keep him alive. And perhaps it was. There was no proof, but Kaito swore that Galaxy-Eyes could understand him if he made the effort.

The duel had been nearly an hour ago. There were black spots in his vision, getting larger and larger, and if he didn't lie down he would fall down — and Ryoga was curled up on the pallet, covered in blankets.

Orbital 7 kicked him.

"What the fuck," Ryoga groused, one hand over his eyes. "What, Kaito?"

Kaito didn't waste his breath answering, and Orbital ripped the blankets off Ryoga, against his protests, and dragged the pallet out from under him. Kaito knelt down slowly, using both hands to brace himself while he laid down because fast movements made him dizzy, and let Orbital cover him up, like he were Haruto, like he were a child again.

"Be quiet, you useless fish," Orbital said over Ryoga's sputtered protests. "Kaito-sama is sleeping."

"So was I," Ryoga said, and then he was mercifully silent. Kaito closed his eyes, as the pounding of his heart kept him awake, as the pain washed over him. Sleep was there, so close, and yet it would not come while a vein in his head throbbed and sharp flared in his ribs every time he breathed.

He lay there, trying to focus on Orbital's familiar whirring. Ryoga's teeth were chattering; he wasn't dressed for the cold, even with the dueling clothes Kaito had given him, and Kaito remembered the iciness of his skin from when they'd —

— no, he wouldn't think about that. It had been a mistake, and he had paid the price for it.

But he was aware of the fact that he had gotten Ryoga into this, that Ryoga was lying there freezing because Kaito had left him that way, that Ryoga, too, was suffering because Kaito had exploited him. It was disgusting, and pointless, and there was no way to justify it.

_We're enemies,_ Kaito told himself. _There's nothing I can do for him now. I need to sleep._

Sleep did not come for a long time, and when it did, he woke again and again, every time Ryoga shifted in a fruitless attempt to keep warm.

* * *

Yuuma waited impatiently for Akari to come out of the bathroom and go to sleep. The afternoon had dragged on and on, as Kotori and the others had ditched him for their club meetings again. They'd had so many meetings lately. Yuuma didn't even know what club they were in, and every time they said that he should go on ahead, they'd meet up with him later, he wanted to ask: _can I just wait for you? Can I come with you?_

But he remembered the class rep's taunts, that without Astral and Hope Yuuma was just a loser, and they still stung. He could not shake the suspicion that there were no club meetings and that they were avoiding him, or secretly laughing at him.

He couldn't bear to have those suspicions confirmed, so instead he went home and practice dueled with Astral and lost every time, and watched ESPer Robin, and did his homework as slowly as possible, just to fill up the hours.

Finally he heard the click of Akari's bedroom door below, and grinned. It was finally time! He straightened his bowtie in the mirror, smoothed the sleeves of the pink tuxedo jacket, and climbed out the attic window. Tonight he and Astral were going on an investigation.

"These Numbers are incomplete," Astral had said. "Something is fragmenting them."

Shark's warning sounded in his head, but with it was the knowledge that no matter what Shark had said, he was probably in danger, and going into the city at night meant they might meet again. After their brief lunch, Yuuma hadn't seen him around, even though he'd gone back to the cafe across from the hospital to look. He had so many questions — who was after Astral and the Numbers? What was Shark doing? Where did he live and why had he come to warn Yuuma at all?

_Because we're friends,_ Yuuma thought firmly. _That's why I have to find out, in case he is in trouble._

Downtown Heartland was bright at all hours, and Yuuma stepped off the train in a station full of well-dressed partiers and families with amusement park passes on lanyards around their necks. The billboards sparkled as they cycled through ads, the people on the roller coaster screamed as the car shot downhill, and every store and club and bar had their name in neon lights above their door.

Yuuma hadn't been in the city at night for a long time. He and Akari had made day trips together, but the hadn't come to the amusement park at night since his parents disappeared. He stood there and watched the citizens for a few moments, remembering — Kazuma picking him and setting him on his shoulders, teaching him how to win at carnival games and failing, Mirai stepping in and winning the grand prize in one shot — and sighed.

"I sense nothing here."

Yuuma produced a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. "The class rep and Tokunosuke did some digging. There's a dueling club around here somewhere."

He'd seen dueling clubs in movies, but never in real life. They were supposed to be swanky, with waiters in black waistcoats and trays of champagne, and red velvet everywhere. Yuuma had worn his best clothes in anticipation; it was like being a secret agent, he thought, and he grinned as he examined the class rep's directions.

Luckily, Takashi had neat handwriting.

"This is the place…?"

It was just a wooden building, ramshackle and crooked, the tin roof rusted over. The door was bolted shut from outside, and there was no one around. The streets were empty, the stores were closed, the apartment complexes had broken windows, and Yuuma looked at it all and frowned at the directions.

"It does not look as you described."

"Takashi and Tokunosuke said they were sure, though."

"It may be dangerous."

Everyone kept saying that to him. But even if things were dangerous, that didn't mean they didn't have to be done. Astral needed his memories, and they had to find out who was looking for the Numbers, and if they were in danger, Yuuma was tired of hearing about it. He wanted to see for himself what the danger was.

He approached the building and tried lifting the bar. It wasn't too heavy, and he got it up enough to turn the knob and pull the door open.

The room inside was packed with people. Dirty, sweaty people, all of them taller and bulkier than he was, all of them wearing duel disks that looked like they'd seen better days, and all of them looking right at him.

"…hi."

"Run back to Mommy, kid," one of the ones nearest the door growled. He made a fist and punched his open palm. "Or do you wanna go?"

Yuuma gulped. He looked around, and noticed a few of the duelists were reaching for iron pipes, and empty glasses, and decided that this was not the kind of danger he wanted to be acquainted with.

He fled.

Twenty minutes of frantic running later, he was well away from the illegal dueling bar…and also from anything familiar. He was in a business district, and he was lost. His chest ached from sprinting, and he stopped, sat down on a bench, and breathed.

"That was a dueling club?"

"That was an underground one. You can get arrested for going to one." Yuuma buried his face in his hands. "Man, that was close! I can't believe Tokunosuke did that to us."

"Why would it be illegal to duel?"

"They use shock collars and stuff." Yuuma rubbed his neck. He'd seen _Duel Club_ too many times when he was younger; it was a favorite of his father's, and Yuuma had always ended up sneaking downstairs to watch it with him, even though it gave him nightmares.

He had never understood the appeal of the underground circuit. Duels weren't for hurting people.

_Shark couldn't mixed up in that kind of thing, could he?_ Yuuma bit his lip.

"We are lost. And we have discovered nothing."

"We'll figure it out!" Yuuma said, too loudly. He clutched at the key determinedly. "Whatever happens, I will definitely make sure you get back all your memories."

Astral smiled very slightly, and Yuuma nodded at him. They were going to kattobingu their way to the answers, he thought, no matter what. After all, Astral was depending on him.

But right now they were lost, and Yuuma had no idea where he was going. He glanced up at the sky, wishing it was dark enough that he could navigate by the stars, and decided there was no point in waiting around. He picked a random direction and started walking.

All of the office buildings looked the same to him, and all the street names were just numbers. The city was on a grid system, he remembered Kotori explaining to him (on a class system that had ended up with Yuuma dueling small children in the park while the class toured a factory) but Yuuma had never been any good at geometry. He walked past the walls of tinted glass, past the O-bots bustling about, past the dumpster in the gaps between buildings —

A hand grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him off the street.

"What the—"

"Give it to me," she whispered, and she crawled over Yuuma's body before he could get up off the asphalt and dug long nails into his throat. She had grey hair and wild eyes and was wearing an outfit that must have been fancy before, but was filthy now, torn and strained, the lace all unraveled. "Give it to me!"

Yuuma shoved her off, and she snarled and raked her nails across his face. It stung.

"Yuuma, you must get away from her," Astral said. But Yuuma couldn't, paralyzed by the desperation in her voice.

"You have to have it," she said. "I…I need it…"

She was trembling. Now that she wasn't attacking him, and was just sitting there, Yuuma could look at her properly. There was something familiar about her — she had cat-like points on either side of her head, and she was wearing a broken duel disk on her left arm that he'd seen before. Her eyes were bloodshot, with dark circles underneath, and when she opened her mouth he saw that her teeth were tinged pink.

"Are you okay?"

"Give your Barianite," she said. "Please."

"I don't know what that is —OW!

"Yuuma!" Astral cried, but there was nothing he could do.

Yuuma fell backwards as she lunged at him again. Her nails left bloody scratches in his neck, and her grip was strong, so strong it was making it hard to breathe. He gasped for air, struggling to get her off him so he could run, but she kept squeezing and squeezing and —

Then she stopped. She scooted backwards, away from him, and sat against the wall.

Her shoulders shook with the sound of her sobs. Yuuma wiped at his neck with his sleeve, wincing as the fabric scraped the open cuts, and then sat against the wall beside her. He gently touched her shoulder.

There was a jolt through his arm, like static from a woolen sweater, and he saw pink sparks jump and die in the air around his hand. Yuuma looked up at Astral, who was floating near him with a severe expression, for an answer, but Astral shook his head.

Hesitantly, Yuuma put his hand back on her shoulder. The shock ran through his again, and it wasn't painful, really, just weird. It was as if something was flowing through him into her where they touched. The girl drooped after a minute or two. Her breathing evened out, and when she began to snore, Yuuma realized that she was fast asleep.

He nudged her to wake her, and she toppled over sideways. Yuuma scrambled to catch her, and there weren't sparks this time but a bright flash of pink light that nearly blinded him. As he blinked, spots floating in front of his eyes, Astral spoke.

"Yuuma, look at her."

Yuuma did.

"Cathy?" She was in his class, he remembered — she and Kotori had made him come to the mall with them once. Her dress was mended and clean, and the dirt on her face was gone, and the blood that had been on the tips of her nails was gone, replaced by white nail polish.

"Meow," she mumbled in her sleep.

"You healed her." Astral swooped down to examine Cathy closely. "You did not tell me you had this power."

"Me?" Yuuma looked down at his hands. They looked the same to him as ever. "I didn't know I had any powers."

"Then this is another mystery we must solve," Astral said. "You were very kind to her."

"She seemed kind of freaked out."

"You are very kind to everyone. It is admirable."

Yuuma rubbed the back of his neck. His face was warm. There was Astral embarrassing him again, he thought.

"Astral?" He picked Cathy up. She was heavier than she looked, but Yuuma couldn't leave her on the ground by herself. He staggered out of the alley and into the street and began walking. "What's Barianite?"

"I do not remember," Astral said. "But the name is…familiar to me. I have heard it before."

After that, Yuuma was too out of breath to talk. It took too long to reach somewhere he knew, and to figure out what train he needed to get onto to reach his house. The sun was beginning to color the horizon as he used the last of his farecard to stumble out onto the street.

Cathy slept soundly the whole time, even when Yuuma had to lay her down so he could open the front door, even when he stubbed his toe taking her to the spare bedroom and cried out, even when he pulled off her shoes and threw the blanket over her before collapsing onto the floor.

He was exhausted, and the creeping horror of there being school in the morning was at the back of his mind.

And they still hadn't found out anything, after all that, and he was going to grounded for the foreseeable future and their investigation would have to be on hold. I didn't even get to see Shark, Yuuma thought, as he made his way to the door, bleary-eyed and unbalanced.

When he woke up, he was lying on the floor of the corridor. He was still in his wrinkled tuxedo.

And the bedroom door was open. Yuuma looked inside; Cathy was gone.

"Where did she —"

"She went home," Astral said form behind him. Yuuma jumped.

"Astral!"

"She could see me." Astral flipped himself upside down; he did this when he was pleased sometimes, Yuuma had noticed, and he sat down on the bed to listen.

"She could see you?"

"She told me about the Barianite," Astral said, and at that moment Yuuma's alarm went off upstairs. Yuuma froze, and then he shook his head.

"Hurry up and tell me before Akari finds us," he whispered, and Astral began.

When Akari found him, she took one look at him and told him to go back to bed. You're white as a ghost, she said. She checked him fro a fever — there was none — and tucked him in.

Yuuma let her. He lay there, wanting desperately to sleep, but his mind was full of terrible images, real and imagined, and he could not.


End file.
